


black water brine

by detectivemeer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Death, Depression, Existential Crisis, Non-Linear Narrative, Religion, Resurrection, Suicidal Thoughts, homophobic slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5652034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemeer/pseuds/detectivemeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dear God,” he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	black water brine

Scott dies.

-

Scott dies. He dies. He stares at himself in the mirror, long after his mom left him for the night, and thinks, _I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, I_

-

Scott gets on his knees. Hands clasped, elbows on the edge of his bed. “Dear God,” he says.

-

The first clear memory of being in church he has is Easter, seven years old and trying to shove as many plastic eggs down Stiles’ pants as he can. You’re not supposed to take more than you can carry, but Stiles was smart, he wore his cool pants with all the pockets, zippered and buttoned and regular.

Melissa finds them and tries very hard to be stern. Even though Scott can see the laugh-lines creasing her mouth he ducks his head and wobbles his lip and looks very, very sorry. Stiles does, too, not quite as convincing since eggs keep popping out of his pockets. Melissa shakes her head, gathers them up and sends Stiles off to his dad who gets the same I’m-very-upset-and-not-at-all-amused look his mom got.

“Sorry we tried to steal Jesus’ chocolate,” Scott whispers when they all settle in the pews and his mom’s face goes berry pink and she and Stiles’ dad hold hands in a painful looking away, making tiny wheezing sounds. Scott frowns. He _is_ sorry. There was plenty to go around, but he shouldn’t have done it, anyway. He closes his eyes, leans forward, thinks, _Sorry, Jesus. I promise I won’t steal again._

-

“Whoa, dude, you still have this?” Stiles pulls the Bible from Scott’s drawer, quest for bubblegum forgotten. “Man, your party that year was sick.”

Scott laughs, memories rushing up. Ninth-grade, the fair, his abuela making a loud point of opening her gift first. He keeps meaning to read it, cover to cover, like she asked him to--keeps forgetting that he means to. His cheeks warm at the thought of the inscription inside, her loving words penned so carefully. “Of course,” he says, “I still have your ugly toothpick sculpture you got me for my eighth birthday.”

“That thing took me a week to make, it’s my freakin’ masterpiece, of course you still have it.”

Scott rolls his eyes and throws a pencil at Stiles’ head. Stiles squeaks and tackles him. “Oh, hey,” he says, looking underneath Scott’s bed. “I found gum.”

Scott says, immediately, “I’ll give you five bucks if you--eww, Stiles, jeez. You would’ve eaten anyway wouldn’t you’ve? You’re so gross.”

-

He’s fourteen and stares at Danny’s butt a little too long while they run laps in gym and thinks,  _oh_. On TV an angry man spits, wide eyes and voice shaking, “Fags will burn in hell!”

His mom changes the channel, cursing with disgust under her breath. She pauses, shoots him a look. “You didn’t hear that. And you didn’t hear _that_ ,” she points the remote at the TV, “garbage, either.”

“Okay,” says Scott. Then he says, “Because I think I have a crush on Danny Mahealani.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Scott’s heart claws into his throat, trying to escape out of his mouth.

“Oh, baby, querido,” she wraps him up, squishing him to her chest and peppers kisses all over his face. “I love you. I accept you, okay?”

“Ok-- _okay_ , mom, you’re squeezing me to death.” And she laughs and squeezes his hands, instead, until they’re a little blue and drags him into the kitchen, makes his favorite green chile enchiladas for dinner. Scott bumps her hip as Elvis warbles about hound dogs on the radio and she stirs the sauce.

-

“Do you believe in God?” Allison asks, playing with his fingers. They’re lying by the lookout, watching the stars unfold like the universe is their own private lightshow.

“Uh,” he says, brows furrowing.

Allison smacks a hand over her face. “Sorry. That’s--not really a great date topic, sorry.”

“No, it’s, I mean it’s fine. I like talking to you. About anything.” He turns his head to smile at her, big and goofy. She bites her lip, dimples flashing. “My mom’s not really religious. She used to be, as a kid, but not anymore. We still go to church, though, for Easter, Christmas Eve, sometimes we helped out with bake sales. I don’t know. I don’t think about it that much, but yeah, I believe in God. Do you?”

She shakes her head. “My family never talked about it. And I was never very interested.”

“Why’d you ask?”

“It’s just--all of this. Werewolves are _real_ , you know? It makes you think.”

“Yeah, but… zebras are real and I didn’t know about them until I was, like, five.” Real is relative. Real is: his grades, Allison, his shirt, the sky, the Tic Tacs in his pocket. Real he can touch, can touch him. The rest is hope, or maybe faith, but the distinction doesn't matter to him. The rest is soft, and as strong as he makes it. The rest--he can control.

“Scott.” Allison’s eyes are wide. “You’re a _werewolf_. Are you seriously telling me that’s never raised some sort of existential debate inside you?”

Scott’s nose scrunches. “No?”

“Oh my--you are _so_ weird,” she says, affectionately, rolling over him to pin his arms with her hands, and kisses him soundly.

-

He believed. He believed. He forgot about it most of the time, because it wasn’t like he went to mass or watched his blasphemies or prayed (except, sometimes, in the blackest part of the night when death clung under his fingernails and he closed his eyes and bit his tongue and thought, _take me, take me, take me, leave them be, let them live, please, God, please, I’ll be good, I swear, let them live)._ But he believed. He knew Allison was in heaven and it wasn’t a comfort but--it was something. He knew all the souls he lost were up there, safe and happy and eternal. That’s what he knew.

He doesn’t know a fucking thing, now.

-

The confessional doesn’t want him, but if it did:

Forgive me Father, for I have killed and lied, I’ve broken lives and tried to forsake this life you gave me. Do you want me to alphabetize my sins? We can start with Alpha, which I was never meant to be and cannot carry on my shoulders, and Allison, Boyd, Erica, who--

We can end with the abomination that is my body, half-man and half-beast, a ruin of blood and death and none of it mine. My wholly rotted soul is dead-wood and the peeling paint atop it. I would list all the ways I’ve hurt people but I don’t want to take that much of your time. I would apologize for everything I’ve done but there isn’t enough holy water on this earth to clean my hands.

-

Scott’s staring at the ceiling of his school’s library. The blood in his mouth is thick as cement. He doesn’t want to die. The thought spirals inside him, hysterical. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, please don’t let him die, he doesn’t want to go yet. A dozen, a hundred nights of staring at a different ceiling and thinking _kill me, kill me, kill me, I can’t take it, I’m weak, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ crush his throat. Motel neon and Stiles' warm hands. His own claws digging righteously into his flesh. He hates himself. He hates himself, how could he--he’s sorry and he’ll be good, he won’t be weak, if God, _God if you just give me second chance I know I don’t deserve it but please I don’t want to die Holy Mary Mother of God ruega por nosotros pecadores ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte._

-

Scott thinks, _I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead._

Fifteen minutes. He thought--

He knows this: he didn’t go to heaven, and he didn’t go to hell, and maybe it was purgatory but his soul isn’t that complicated. But it didn’t feel like purgatory. But it didn’t feel like anything.

For fifteen minutes God watched his dead body rot on the grounds of his school and said, _not him._ Don’t touch that boy. Let him be. Or--

Or.

-

He’s not sure how to shake this one. It’s clinging hard. It’s a black mist around his shoulders, a heavy haze filling his skull. He can take the beatings and burnings, electrocution and swords and arrows. He can get up again. He can charge and recharge his hope. He can fight. His fists bloody, his mouth a wreck. He’ll push himself up. He’ll try. The damage, the physical, that doesn’t matter. His body was built to take pain.

But he doesn’t--he died. He keeps searching for it, but he thinks his will didn’t restart with his heart. He thinks a piece of him will always haunt those halls. He’s not sure how to tell everyone that he’s a ghost, now, and he can’t be what they need.

-

En el principio era el Verbo, y el Verbo era con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios. Espero que encuentres paz en estas páginas. Te amo, nieto.

-

Her inscription has faded, slightly. Blue ink gone pale. He runs his fingertips over the words. He wants her here. He wants her warm hugs, loud jewelry, her certainty.

He wants lots of things. Greed. Add it to the list.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Let's Not Pretend (To Be New Men)" by Crooked Fingers  
> pls excuse (or correct) my gtranslate spanish. (if ur curious: i hc melissa’s mom to be pretty strictly religious and melissa a lapsed catholic and they bicker about melissa getting kicked out of her catholic school til the end of time but even tho her faith strayed she had such warm memories of church she actually starts going back while scott’s a kid, so he can too)


End file.
